Loved

by P. C. Cast

  Until Jack tilted his head back as if to gaze lovingly into Damien’s eyes and claim their reunion kiss. Instead of the kiss, Jack opened his mouth impossibly wide, exposing bizarrely sharp teeth, and with a feral growl, Jack Twist tore huge hunks of flesh from his lover’s face and neck.

  Like a rocket, Aphrodite’s roving spirit shot up and out of the body as it collapsed. Awash in terror, hovering above the city, she gazed down at Tulsa as the red tide of bizarre vampyres spread, and the shrieks and death wails of the doomed echoed all around her.

  Aphrodite knew what those things were—and they were so, so much more than normal red fledglings or vampyres.

  “No! Oh, my goddess! No, Damien!”

  “Aphrodite! It’s okay. You’re back. You’re safe.” Zoey’s voice came to Aphrodite, finding its way through her panicked gasps and pain-filled sobs.

  Keeping her eyes pressed tightly closed, Aphrodite reached out, searching. Darius was there. Darius would always be there. He grabbed her hands, holding them tightly in his.

  “You’re safe, my beauty. All is well. The vision is over.” Darius spoke softly, soothingly. “I have called the black car. It is five minutes out.”

  “What was it? What did you see?” Stark’s voice intruded.

  Aphrodite didn’t need to see Darius’ reaction. She could feel it. He stiffened and turned, putting himself between Aphrodite and Stark, as if to protect her from his questions.

  But Aphrodite was a Prophetess of Nyx. She didn’t need protection. She needed to do her job.

  “Zombies. I saw zombies. I saw them set loose on Tulsa, infecting everyone—killing everyone.” Into the shocked silence that followed her announcement, Aphrodite felt heavy, wet flakes begin to fall on her hair, face, and body. Unbidden, she heard herself speak the last words of Kramisha’s poem.

  “Sometimes it

  just

  needs

  to

  snow.”

  6

  Zoey

  “I know it’s super tempting, but we can’t keep this from Damien,” I said.

  “Okay, I hear you,” Aphrodite said. “But I saw what I saw. Damien was the focus of their zombie rage, and Jack killed him. Scratch that. I’m pretty sure Jack killed him. I left while Jack was still eating his face, so one can only assume. If we’re going to tell him—and I agree that we should—we need to tell him the truth. Face-eating boyfriend zombie and all.”

  “That’s so gross,” I said.

  “You think hearing about it’s gross? Trying living it. Or dying it.” She shrugged and took another sip of champagne. “I think both are correct.” Aphrodite grimaced and pressed her hand over the damp washcloth that Darius had wetted and folded across her bloody, weeping eyes while she reclined on the gold-trimmed velvet chaise lounge in the sitting room off her bedchamber. Like me, after we established our new High Council, she’d relocated from the girl’s dorm to the castle-like stone building that housed the professors’ quarters, dining hall, and, on the first floor, the House of Night administrative offices. Also like me, she’d totally redecorated her living area. Unlike me, she hadn’t let Damien spearhead her project, but had hired a team of very chic and very expensive designers and told them to “turn these antiquated, depressing rooms into something that oozes bordello chic mixed with Louis XIV.” They’d done an awesome job, even if all the gold they used did sometimes blind me and give me a headache.

  Just kidding.

  Sorta.

  “We have to tell him,” I repeated.

  “It’s going to hurt and confuse him, Z,” Stark said.

  I sighed. “I know that, but we’re not kids anymore. We’re the ones making adult decisions for all the North American vampyres. And by ‘we,’ I mean my Council, and that includes Damien. Of course it’s going to hurt him, but we know what happens when we keep secrets from each other.”

  “Disaster. And, let me add that disaster is what I saw in that vision—of the zombie apocalypse kind. Damien caused it. I don’t mean on purpose, but he ran instead of closing the circle.” Aphrodite turned her face in my direction, aiming her blind frown at me. “You told him to. Uh, Z. Just by-the-by, if zombies are pouring out of a blood fountain or whatever, and you’ve cast a circle that let them in—close the damn circle before you start screaming at people to flee.”

  “I’ll definitely keep that in mind,” I said, trying not to be offended that she was basically telling me that I’d messed up as bad as Damien.

  Suddenly Aphrodite sat up straight, holding the gold washcloth tightly against her closed eyes. “Holy shit! I just realized where I was.”

  “You mean during the vision?” I asked.

  She started to nod vigorously, then stopped with a moan, clutching her temples as the bloody washcloth fell from her face to expose the tracks of scarlet tears that still seeped from beneath her closed lids. “Fuck, that hurts. But yeah, during the vision. It was Woodward Park—by Neferet’s grotto. I recognize it now that I’m out of all that panic and confusion. Damien was backing for the stone stairs when Jack pulled himself out of the bloody, disgusting fountain thing.” She shuddered. “He was below where we were standing when I had the vision. Right by the wall.”

  “Damn, this keeps getting worse and worse!” Stark cursed.

  “Did you get any sense of Neferet? Tendrils of Darkness? Anything slithering around at all?”

  “No, but I think that was covered before the vision. Those rose bushes were definitely tendril-like. As for the actual vision? Unless Damien noticed I probably wouldn’t have. Plus, you have to remember the state of panic he was in, which means I was in the same state of panic. It’s really hard to think when your body is filled with adrenaline, hysterical and dying.”

  “You have no idea why Damien and I were at the grotto?”

  “None at all, except that I’m about 95 percent sure that you two had cast a circle.”

  “Was anyone else there?” Stark asked.

  “No. Well, maybe. Sorry. I can’t say for sure.”

  “This could have to do with what Kalona was warning me about,” I said. “Aphrodite’s visions aren’t always literal. Maybe this was one of the more metaphoric visions, initiated by whatever Kalona sensed. It could have been symbolic for something. Could you tell?” I asked her.

  She started to shake her head, and then grimaced in pain, holding herself very still. “No. But I can tell you that it felt just like it does every time I have a death vision. I’m inside the person who’s dying. It’s confusing, terrifying, painful, and not particularly helpful because I have to try to sift through all of those awful emotions quickly, before the person I’m attached to either dies or I’m sucked out of them again.”

  “What’s your gut say—literal or metaphor?” Stark asked.

  “Literal. It didn’t have the feel of one of my dreamlike visions,” Aphrodite said. “Except I’m confused about Jack. He’s dead, right? I mean, there’s no way he could be lurking around the depot tunnels as a salivating, stinky, feral red fledgling, could he?”

  I shook my head. “No, or at least I don’t see how that could be possible. I’ll fill Kramisha in when she’s done teaching and see if she can give us any insight. She’s totally redone those tunnels. I was there just a couple of days ago. They’re nice. Really nice, and filled with the red fledglings being bussed back and forth from there to here for school. It’s actually crowded enough that Kramisha and I were talking about getting Stevie Rae to open up some of the tunnels she sealed off last year next time she’s in town. I just don’t see how there could be any zombielike creatures creeping around down there.”

  “And, I have to say, the Depot Restaurant is surprisingly fantastic,” Aphrodite added. “It’s about time Tulsa opened a high-end vegan restaurant.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. The restaurant had been Kramisha’s brainchild. She’d created
the business plan and presented it to our High Council. It got a unanimous yes vote. Every one of us loved the layers of irony—vampyres running a meat-free restaurant smack in the middle of bible-belted cattle country! And now we love that the restaurant is a resounding success. At first Tulsans might have gone to the restaurant to gawk at and be waited on by beautiful fledglings, but pretty soon it was apparent that they were returning because the food was totally awesome.

  “Yeah, it’d be tough for anyone to lurk around that busy place unnoticed. Especially if that someone smelled like dead things rotting in a basement and acted even worse than the first red fledglings used to.”

  “Plus, there’s Aphrodite’s sacrifice. The one where she lost her Mark and became, well, whatever it is she is now,” Stark began.

  “Which is an amazingly attractive Prophetess of Nyx,” Aphrodite interrupted.

  “Yeah, that. But once you made the sacrifice of your humanity, you saved Stevie Rae and you gave all red fledglings the ability to choose between Light and Darkness. We knew Jack. Dead or undead, there’s no way he would have chosen Darkness over Light.”

  “I apologize for the insensitive way this sounds, but we saw Jack’s body burn on the funeral pyre. He could not have been resurrected as a red fledgling,” Darius said.

  “Which gives me hope that at least some of Aphrodite’s vision was metaphoric,” I said.

  “Yeah, it does seem that we can’t take the part about Jack literally,” Aphrodite said. “Still, it’s going to be rough to tell Damien that he’s the focus of a zombie attack on Tulsa led metaphorically by his dead boyfriend.”

  I sighed. “So much for my birthmas surprise.”

  “She knows about that?” Aphrodite said with disgust. “Good job, Bow Boy.”

  “I had to tell her after that damn Kalona dream. She was going to call everyone here anyway, and she was already freaking about not being able to reach her circle,” Stark said.

  “When is everyone getting here? We need to call a Council meeting, ASAP,” I said.

  Stark took his phone from his pocket and tapped the screen. “They’ll be here within half an hour. They met at the tunnels last night and were to stay there until the party tomorrow, but I sent an emergency group text. Everyone’s coming here instead. Stevie Rae and Rephaim just landed—they were the last to get in.”

  “Damien’s already here?” I asked.

  “Yep. Got here yesterday afternoon. He’s already been to Ihloff Salon for a mani-pedi.”

  I frowned. “He’s been to Ihloff, but hasn’t been here to see me?”

  “Hey, genius,” Aphrodite said. “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said.

  “And aren’t you totally used to having a crappy birthday, so a ruined surprise party is actually above the norm for you?” She added.

  “There is that,” I agreed. “Okay, let’s start gathering the Council. Are you going to be okay enough in thirty minutes or so to join us?”

  “Absolutely, if Darius releases his stranglehold on my Xanax bottle.”

  I looked at Darius. He shook his head.

  “I could feel that,” Aphrodite said.

  “Is that some weird gift from Nyx?” Stark murmured to me as we left Aphrodite’s room.

  “Is what?”

  “Her bizarre ability to know what’s going on around her even when she’s blind.”

  “Um. No. I think that’s a selective gift sent by the pharmaceutical gods.”

  Stark grinned as he slid his arm around my shoulders. “You’re a funny girl.”

  “Hey, I’m totally serious.”

  “Which makes you even funnier.” He kissed my ear, making me squirm and laugh.

  I pulled him to a stop and looked up into his gentle brown eyes. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. But for what?”

  “For my almost surprise party.”

  “You don’t think it was Stevie Rae’s idea?” he asked.

  “I’m pretty sure she was in on it with you, but I recognize a Stark idea when I see one,” I said. “So, thank you. And, in case you’ve forgotten. I love you. Always.”

  “I’ll never forget. Always.”

  Stark kissed me then, and for a moment his touch, taste, and the current of love that flowed between us drowned out everything else—every scary, sad, crazy thing else.

  “Ohmygoodness! I’ve missed you so much, Z!”

  Stevie Rae flew into my arms. If I hadn’t been expecting it, she would have knocked me over. Not that I minded. Seeing my BFF again was definitely worth being knocked on my butt.

  “Stevie Rae! It’s like I haven’t seen you for years!” I held onto her tightly, not caring that she was squeezing the breath out of me. When we finally were able to let each other go, I saw that tears were pouring down her cheeks. “No! Don’t cry! You’ll make me start and I’ll turn into a snot-and-mascara disaster site.”

  “You will not stop her. She’s been crying since the plane circled Tulsa to land.” Rephaim pulled me into a quick hug, kissing me on top of my head (which reminded me of just how tall he was).

  I hugged him back and then met my BFF’s liquid gaze. “You’ve been bawling since then? What’s going on with you?”

  She sniffled and wiped at her cheeks, trying to smile through her tears. “I just—I just, m-miss home.”

  “Awww, come here.” I opened my arms again and, sobbing like someone had taken her favorite cowboy boots (which wasn’t true because she was wearing them), she clung to me. “Hey, if you’re that homesick we can talk about bringing you back here. Stevie Rae, I didn’t mean for you to be miserable up there in the north.”

  “What about me? I’m semimiserable in the east. New York City has been in the deep freeze since mid-November. I’m so over it.” Damien spoke as he entered the Council Chamber, holding out his arms and grinning at me.

  “Damien!” Stevie Rae and I said together.

  “Group hug!” she said, and we shifted so that Damien could join our hug fest.

  “Me, too! Me, too!” Shaylin rushed into the chamber, clapping her hands, with Nicole close on her heals.

  “Oh, no, no, no. No one’s group hugging without fire!” Shaunee blazed into the room.

  “And me. Unless my star power is too much for you guys to handle.”

  “Erik!” I grinned happily as Erik Night made his grand entrance—last, of course. “OMG, is it really you, Dracula?” I gushed in my best tween-boy-band-concert voice. Erik was the current megastar of a new Joss Whedon–directed cable series called Fantasyworld—a fantastic addition to the insanely popular Westworld and Futureworld series. He plays, of course, Dracula. A super-sexy robot version of Dracula—complete with seminude sex scenes realistic enough to make me blush. They filmed the series in NOLA, and Joss was so awesome that he kept a private jet on standby for when Erik was called to fulfill his Tracker duties—which is why he could be a megasuperstar.

  Stevie Rae, Shaylin, and Damien all followed my lead. They began swooning dramatically and begging “Dracula” for his autograph.

  “And could I have a little ol’ lock of your hair? I’m making an Erik Night doll for my Erik Night shrine. Not that that’s creepy at all,” Stevie Rae said, giggling through her tears.

  “I want to have your babies!” Damien gushed.

  “I can hardly speak. Your handsomeness has done me in.” Shaylin fanned herself.

  Erik frowned. “Okay, Shaylin just jumped the shark. She doesn’t even bat for my team.”

  “Nope, she’s totally on my team.” Nicole made kiss noises at her Consort.

  “Jumped the shark?” Stevie Rae asked.

  “I’ll explain later,” Damien said.

  “Is this better?” Shaylin put the back of her hand against her forehead and launched into a fairly good imitation of Sc
arlet from Gone with the Wind. “Your virility has changed me. I shall nevah eat pussy again!”

  “I hate that movie,” I said. “It goes on, like, forever.”

  “And it’s racist,” Shaunee added.

  “Everything back then was racist,” Damien said, sotto voce.

  “Please don’t use that word. It makes you sound like a peasant.” Aphrodite walked slowly into the room, holding on to Darius’ arm.

  “Racist?” Damien said.

  “Pussy,” Aphrodite said.

  “Ohmygoodness. Your eyes.” Stevie Rae went to Aphrodite and touched her face gently. “You just had a vision. Are you okay?”

  “I will be. And it’s good to see you, too.”

  “Wait, that’s why the surprise was foiled?” Damien said. “Aphrodite had a vision.” His eyes met mine. “And it’s bad enough that we all needed to get here right away.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “On the good-bad scale, with there being for-real unicorns discovered as good, and Kenny Chesney permanently losing his voice as bad—how bad is it?” Stevie Rae asked.

  “It’s Kenny-Chesney-was-never-born, off-the-scale bad.” Stark said.

  “We all need to sit down,” I said as Lenobia and Kramisha entered the room with the Poet Laureate closing the Council Chamber door firmly behind them.

  “Ah, hell,” Stevie Rae whispered, sounding disconcertingly like me.

  7

  Zoey

  “Okay, so you guys all have copies of the poem Kramisha brought to me just as I was waking up from the Kalona dream.” I’d quickly explained the dream to everyone while Kramisha passed out copies of her prophetic poem.

  “I think we all also need copies of Neferet’s journal,” Lenobia said. She was officially part of our school’s High Council and not the North American Council, but we all respected her wisdom—so she was always invited to our meetings. “Let us read it carefully. Kalona has a point. If we have to fight Neferet again, knowledge will be our second greatest power.”